Local woman’s story of family hardship and addiction

Editor’s note: This letter was submitted to NewBedfordGuide.com. The names have been changed.

My name is Jane Doe, I am 27 years old and a mother of three children: Kelly, Danny, and Marcus.

Kelly and Danny’s father and I, were together for several years. In the final year of being together, I found out that he had an addiction to opiates. I found out because he traded my birthday present for percocet and stole our daughter’s piggy bank that I had been putting money in since being pregnant with her.

When Danny was born, he took our rent money and our TV, and got drugs with both of those, thus causing us to lose our apartment. After a year of trying to get him help, only to have him take several thousand dollars of our tax money and use it all in two weeks time.

Finally, I got the strength to kick him out of our home. He continued to “use” while at his mother’s house, while she enabled his behaviors and he had little to no interaction with our children throughout the year thereafter. During which time, I met somebody else and Marcus came along.

In January 2013 I found out through the newspaper that Dave had been arrested for breaking and entering and receiving stolen property to support his addiction. He went to jail. He got out on bail and shortly after I had Marcus, he was at my home visiting with the kids and I for a while. He found out Marcus’s dad had dropped off some clothes for him, which made Dave angry and jealous, and he nearly strangled me to death.

The day after, he filed for emergency custody of Kelly and Danny, insinuating I was the assaulter and the ‘crazy’ one, denying his addiction and the court granted custody, only to return it to me two weeks later, luckily.

However, he declared he did not want Marcus’s father to be around the children. Marcus’s father proceeded to try and have a relationship with Marcus despite that court order, and Dave pursued custody again in September with the support of the Department of Children and Families, having them remove my children, placing Kelly and Danny with him and saying they had no concerns with him or his addiction any longer, but only with me and my ‘choice in men around my children’ (Dave included, ironically.)

Marcus went to a foster home for two weeks, and a care and protection case was filed, but a lawyer appointed to me by the court, helped me reach an agreement with DCF to get Marcus home. However they said the case with my other two children had ‘nothing to do with them’ being that it is a ‘probate matter.’

Dave has been, that I know of, arrested and jailed for violating his probation at least twice since having custody. Living at his parents in a two level home, where the children sleep in the basement with him and his parents sleep upstairs, not even knowing when Dave leaves — my children are often left unattended and virtually uncared for while Dave goes out on dates, drug binges, to bars, and getting arrested.

The courts continuously let him go on stricter probation terms, but never actually locking him back up because he claims there is ‘nobody else’ to care for the children. I have had numerous people confirm to me that he is not only using drugs, but selling them, and he got put on stricter probation for stealing someone’s cell phone and trading it for drugs and somebody told his probation officer.

He is in community service four times a week and using the welfare money to buy alcohol and other things unnecessary, while his mother provides diapers. He has no license, because he lost it due to crashing a work vehicle while under the influence in 2011.

He has brought my children on drug deals, which has been confirmed by people who’ve seen so. He’s abusive not only verbally and physically towards me, but emotionally towards my children — telling Kelly that “Mommy is a whore and a slut, and does not care about her family, and this is her fault.” He broke pictures of Kelly as a baby in front of her face and told her “mommy doesn’t care about you,” while she cried and cried. He said I broke the pictures, and told police and DCF so. And they believe him, always, and never me.

My children want to come home and he won’t even let them see me despite my court order saying I can. He won’t have me at their birthday parties or any of my friends or family, and I have not seen them in a month because he is trying to tell people I am crazy and unfit. I took care of my children by myself while he was getting high for three+ years, and one day he decides to play daddy and takes them from me.

Above all else, most baffling to me is that he claims to have been clean and drug free since January 2013 when he was locked up — yet only got on the opiate blocker, “SUBOXONE”, in November 2013. Why would somebody who has been clean for that amount of time need suboxone almost a year into sobriety? It does not make sense and it just proves he has been using while having custody of them.

DCF is all over the news for being crooked and unjust, placing many children that have ended up beaten and/or dead by way of them placing them with the wrong parents. I need help getting my children out of the hands of their father who is only using them as a power trip in trying to hurt me since I won’t take him back. I have tried everything and don’t know where to turn…